Safety First

Photograph by Lex Dodson

No matter what area you are specializing in, fire is dangerous. While there are safety precautions you can take, these only minimize the risk factor. Safety precautions do not make working with fire safe. At the DFC we have the utmost respect for safety and work hard to educate the community on how to take our safety standards home with them. Fire Safety involves many components. Below is a list of some of the safety precautions the Detroit Fire Collective follows Fire Safety Detail Every time someone spins or dances with fire it is important for them to have a safety detail on hand. This is a trained individual who watches the fire spinner with a wet towel or a fire retardant blanket and is prepared to take quick action if something goes wrong. Safety Towel or Blanket The fire safety should be trained many procedures such as extinguishing a prop or extinguishing a person. The best thing to do this with is a wet towel. The towel should be saturated completely but not be dripping. Another option is a fire retardant blanket known as duvetine. Duvetine’s a nice when burning in the winter so you don’t have to have a frozen towel. They also look more professional. However, they are not as fire resistant as wet towels and are caught on fire more easily. Clothing It’s very important to know what material your clothing is made out of before lighting up your prop. Non-synthetic materials like cotton, wool, and leather are good. Synthetic materials like polyester and spandex are bad. When synthetic material catches fire it doesn’t just burn, it melts. This is extremely dangerous and painful. To prevent materials from melting to your skin and body don’t wear synthetic materials. Hair It is a good idea to have longer hair pulled back, covered, wetted, or a combination of these. Dreadlocks are a little different. Since dreadlocks are so compact, they do not trap air leaving nothing to feed the fire when the lock is singed. Storing fuel With the exception of fire eating and fire breathing, fuel should not be stored near open flame. Props should be fueled in advance. If props are not used immediately they should be bagged until use. The fuel depot is the area where wicks are dipped and fuel is stored. When fueling a prop the fuel is best stored in a double bucket system. This system is a bucket within a bucket and a lid. Setting up your fuel depot this way lowers the risk that the bucket will be dumped over. If the fuel were to catch on fire, using a lid you can extinguish the flame quickly and effectively.